Something I’ve noticed is that when things get tougher, I get grouchier. I don’t know whether you could draw a straight line graph - toughness of life on the x axis, grouchiness up the y, a straight line up and to the right - but there’s definitely a relationship.
I don’t even know if there’s another factor involved. Probably - probably a fear caused by difficulty that leads to snappy irritability. Recently, I’ve tried to start calling those fears out in order to deal with them. It’s the unspoken ones that jab you in the ribcage though, isn’t it?
Anyway, I was wondering if this is true for most people. The tougher life gets, the more grizzly we all become. It’s understandable. We live in a wintry world and the icy wind is biting us all. Perhaps that injects toxic waste into society and is slowly making us all just a bit meaner. I don’t want that to be the case.
I don’t think you could blame me for being grouchy. It’s been a year since we put the flat on the market and over 9 months since we made the offer on the house. Delay after delay after delay have prevented us from exchanging and completing, and the latest one has pushed things back again. It is fair to say that I am properly fed up. We are properly fed up.
But if grouchiness is the linear response to tough situations, then what you can blame me for is how I’m handling it. Because even if I can’t help what happens, I can help my reaction to what happens.
And that, as the wisest people in my life have always known, is what matters. I think those people find a way to get thankful when it hurts, to stay kind when they’ve been knocked around, to keep upright in a storm of bad behaviour.
I just wish I could be more like that instead of getting so snappy all the time.
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